
<h1>Notes on Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Denis Diderot</h1>

<h2>Summary</h2>

<ul>

<li>
Diderot was very promenient philosopher of the Enlightment. He started as just
a poor writer trying to make a living in Old Regime France, but eventually grew
to a certain fame (or, rather, infamy), the more he published. Enjoying, through
the patronage of Catherine the Great of Russia, a very comfortable living in his
twilight years.

<li>
Diderot was a pionner of literary philosophy, authoring works that expressed
philosophical ideas through the vehicle of literature.

<li>
Our codification of knowledge through language and how this act can modify this
very knowledge, is a recurrent theme in Diderot's work.

<li>
Diderot was a self-called ecletic (as opposed to a sectarian), that is, someone
that seeks truth through experimentation, but is also attentive to the language
surrounding the codification of this truth.

<li>
The senses, for Diderot, all require their own particular metaphysics, each
producing their own worlds.

<li>
Diderot mixed experimentalism with metaphysics, creating a <em>speculative
metaphysics</em>. A practice that used experimentation as far as it can, falling
back to metaphysics to fill in the gaps.

<li>
Diderot defended the idea of the <q>animalization</q> of matter. It prescribes
that any matter is potentially living matter, as is transits through the world
to be eventually consumed by us. The example used is of a marble statue grounded
to dust and mixed with the dirt. The dirt would give rise to plants that, in
some manner or another, would be consumed by us.

<li>
Diderot materialism is, in his words, <q>modern Spinozism</q> (spinozism with
biology grafted on top). Matter for is self-organzing and endowed with vital
properties.

<li>
When confronted with the issue of the soul, Diderot treats as any other body
part, which, in a argumentative point of view, is a <em>type of reduction</em>

<li>
Diderot compares the brain with a book that reads itself, and the embodied
book-reader as self-organizing.

<li>
Diderot understands humans as only partially modifiable (in contrast with the
notion of fully-modifiable blank slates). To him we differ, at a fundamental
<em>organizational</em> level, and from this differences, arises our
individuality and a degree of agency.

<li>
Diderot firmly belives that all effects are born from causes, otherwise Nature
would be consntantly taking leaps.

<li>
But Diderot does not partake on the all effects and causes are interconnected.
On the contrary, he sees each entity as requiring specific causes. Humans,
Diderot argues, require discrete human causes and, from them, discrete effects.

<li>
All things are subject to what Diderot deems "vicissitude", in other words, they
are in a constant state of change. We wouldn't recognize, according to Diderot,
fruits and vegetables from thousand of years ago.

<li>
With respect to the arts, be it them visual or performatic, Diderot was
especially concerned with how we interfaced them, with through what mechanisms
we understood art; and the role of langauge throughout the whole interaction.

<li>
Ethically, Diderot disagreed with that materialism should entail a self-serving,
solipsistic conception of reality, arguing that we naturally have a
understanding of what is virtuous behaviour. Those that engage in libertinage
are willifully engaging in vicious behaviour.

<li>
When confronted with the problem of the inifinitude of Nature in face of the
finite character of humans, Diderot opts for the athropocentrial view: our
observation of Nature and all of its complexity, is what truly makes it sublime.

</ul>

<h2>Brief history</h2>

<p>
Diderot's life is centered around his work as a writer with increasingly radical
ideas in Old Regime France, accordingly gaining notoriety as his carrer
progressed and his body of work increased. Although initally having nothing more
to his name than his education, and having suffered the oppresion of the "idea"
police (due to secular undertones of his writings), Diderot's contributions,
especially on the <em>Encyclopédie</em> as both editor and writer - a work whose
publication sparked a intense debate between skeptics and theists -, eventually
garnered him the status of a celebrity, becoming one of the most well regarded
thinkers at the time of the Enlightment. Later in his life, Diderot managed to
secure the patronage of Catherine the Great of Russia (one of the enlighted
despots), allowing to live the rest of his life comfortably. In these twilight
years, his ideas only became more radical, distancing himself more from the rest
of the french society, including the revolutationaries, being denied a place at
the French Revolution pantheon amidst the likes of Rousseau and Voltaire. Such
radicalism, when coupled with the idiosyncracity of his philosohical work (far
more literary rather than systematic - something very much new for the time),
pushed him to annals of french culture, with interest in his work only being
revided after 1870.

<h2>Philosophy</h2>

<p>
Diderot's major philosophical concerns were in the realm of materialism and
esthetics, while also touching upon ethics and even anthropology. First and
foremost, he was an self-titled eclectic, someone aversed to sectarianism and
commited to dealing sincerely with truth. The ecletic, to Diderot, is both an
experimentalist and user of language.

<p>
His materialism was very influenced by the work of, at the time, very
influential philosopher Nicholas Malenbranche. Both saw how our acquisiton of
knowledege was limited by our senses, but while Malenbranche believed
mathematical reason to be our way to achieve truth (here in the divine sense),
Diderot instead though of language as our bridge for comprehending Nature. This
preocupation on how we use language to interface with the world - very much a
malenbranchian concern - is a recurring theme in Diderot's work. Diderot was
also fascinated with the nascent science of biology (at the time called life
sciences), and combined them with his particular strand of malenbranchian
philosophy. The product was a very idiosyncratic view on materialism, that mixed
both empiricism and metaphysics, a <q>experimental metaphysics</q> - a method
that placed emphasis on practice to yield knowledge, but that didn't shy away
from metaphysical musings to fill in empty gaps.

<p>
Within this methodology, Diderot's understands each sense having their own
metaphysics - with each sense creating their own worlds - and, going further,
that each molecule itself having the hability to sense; and, although this idea
is apparently derived from various sciences (natural history, chemistry,
medicine, etc), it's not grounded in any experimentation, thus making it
<em>speculative metaphysics</em>.

<p>
The problem of the feeling of objects is clarified by what Diderot calls the
<q>animalization of matter</q>, that is, matter is either alive or potentially
alive. In Diderot's own example, if a marble statue is grounded into dust and
mixed with the earth as fertizer for plants, which then grow and eaten by
animals, who in turn are eaten by us. Matter, in this sense, is in a transitory
state, eventually becoming alive.

<p>
Now, in respect to the soul, Diderot differed from other materialists, treating
it as any other body part, naturalising it. All while treating believing the
brain as imbued with some special quality beyond that of other body parts; in a
passage he compares it with a book that reads itself with its embodiment, the
brain-reader, as self-organizing — a discussion about brain plasticity far ahead
of its time.

<p>
His materialism further diverged in other two points: the issue of individuality
and the causality. Diderot held a strong belief that all effects must be born of
some cause, otherwise nature would be constantly taking leaps. This is already
in accordancy with many materialists, the point of contention lies on the issue
of the causality. Diderot's conception of cause was very discrete; a human must
have particular human causes and effecs, further even, every human has causes
specific to himself. Individuality arises here at the organisational level, with
differences in the disposition of atomic biological parts that compose us
bringing innate differenciation between humans. This is suggests that we are,
unlike most conceptions of humas as <em>fully modifiable</em> blank slates, only
<em>partially modifiable</em>. Inside Diderot's materialism, arises also the
idea of <em>vicissitude</em>, which is the concept that all things are in
motion, mutating as time goes.

<p>
Diderot's had also contributions on the artistical side, in both performance (in
the form of theatre) and the visual arts. His main concern here was on the
interplay of experiences between subject and object, viewer and painting or
audience and play, and on the actions of language in these relations. It was
Diderot who coined the idea of the <q>fourth wall</q> and further concluded,
disagreeing with Rousseau, that theatre could be used to encourage virtuous
behaviour. And, to understand our comprehension of art, he developed a concept
called <em>perception of relations</em>, which is both a theory of judgement
and, at a more basic level, a theory of cognitive function; it attempts to
explain why we find certain visuals appealing, and grounds a certain
hyper-reactivity to art on fundamental organical differences.

<p>
Further differing from other materalists, was Diderot's understanding of the
ethics surrounding his materialistic views, which are commonly associated with a
cynical, solipsistic and self-interested conception of morality. Diderot opposed
this idea, instead judging that we, by nature, are oriented towards virtue and
those that stray from that path are going against the grain. Furthermore,
despite having not authored any treatise on ethics (out of fear that a failure
to produce one of meaningful quality would encourage the unethical behaviour),
Diderot observed a necessity that any ethical theory should take our passions
into consideration, as they cement our social bonds.

<p>
Lastly, in face of the problem of our finitude in face of the inifinite
complexity of Nature, Diderot's has a very anthropocentric proposition: human
presence and observation gives vibrancy to the otherwise mute scenery of the
world.

<h2>Short commentary</h2>

<p>
Diderot is a philosopher in tension with himself. While in one hand he
recurrently attempts to describe the world through the eyes of an empiricist,
holding experimentation in high regard; in the other, he reaches for the
metaphysics whenever he feels is the most appropriate (or convenient, depending
on the what reader feels about his work). At the same time,  dislikes both those
who rely solely on abstratc mathematics to understand nature, and the
experimentalists that seek to reduce all to mere trial and error. And while he
reaches to the newborn science of biology for aid in his explanation, to provide
him groundwork, he ultimately has to leap attempt metaphysical leaps to get
anywhere.

<p>
Above all, Diderot dons the trappings of an Enlightment scientist upon the soul
of an artist, and not any artist, but the one closer to language than any other:
the writer. From here, is easy to understand his infatuation to language, what
other profession is so acutely aware to how we can shape the world through
language other than the writer? This is a major recurring concern in his work:
the distinction from what <em>is</em> and what <em>we make it be</em>; and what
other tool is as varied and multifaceted as language itself? Be it analyzing how
we interface with art or how our senses and use of language shape of
understanding of Nature, or even within his own materialism, Diderot seems to be
keenly preoccupied with how we shape our own knowledge and our very selves.

<p>
No wonder, he placed ecleticism in such high regard, the artist-philosohper must
be averse to dogmatism at all levels, otherwise he wouldn't get anywhere. Here
Diderot gives us a valuable lesson in his philosphical methodology: be open to
all, be critic of all.

<h2>Major works</h2>

<ul>
<li>Lettre sur les aveugles à l'usage de ceux qui voient
<li>Lettre sur les sourds et muets à l’usage de ceux qui entendent et qui parlent
<li>Le Rêve de D'Alembert (masterpiece of the enlightment)
<li>Le Neveu de Rameau (greatest and most influential work)
<li>Pensées philophiques
</ul>
